Is banning red dye controversial? RFK Jr. is just following California’s lead
Good morning and happy Friday! You’re reading the A.M. Capitol Alert.
MAHA MEETS CALIFORNIA CRUNCHY
It’s not a new type of fusion sushi roll — instead, call it a recipe for bipartisanship.
Two years after California began taking on synthetic food dyes and additives, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. this week announced the FDA would phase out several of the same dyes beginning next year. Republican lawmakers from Utah and West Virginia attended his press event to tout similar new laws.
The controversial HHS head has angered many with his belief — against evidence — that autism is linked to vaccines and recent plans to create an “autism registry.”
But vaccine skepticism has simmered in both conservative and left-leaning parenthood circles for a while, and food dyes are another area of common ground the leader of the “Make America Healthy Again” movement has found with holistic lefties who seek more natural foods and products for their children.
The movement has had strong roots in California for years. And while many liberal L.A. and Marin County moms were early practitioners of “crunchy” (or its less-rigid relative, “scrunchie”) parenthood, conservative women have begun to embrace a similar “tradwife” lifestyle — growing their own food, raising backyard chickens and baking homemade Oreos.
Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, D-San Fernando Valley, put synthetic additive bans on the legislative map two years ago with a “Skittles law” that bans Red Dye No. 3 and three other food preservatives by 2027. A follow-up law targets a number of dyes in foods at schools.
Since then, more than 20 states have introduced legislation to do the same.
Large food and candy makers are resisting the change, pointing out that even as the FDA moved to ban Red Dye No. 3 in January, it acknowledged a lack of scientific evidence that it causes harm in humans.
“We are thrilled to see Washington, D.C. following California’s lead and phasing out harmful chemicals,” Gabriel said in an interview, adding that it’s “encouraging” to see how quickly the issue spread. (The L.A.-area lawmaker, it should be noted, did not self-identify as “crunchy,” but said his family is “being more mindful about what is in the products we’re buying.”)
This year, he’s back with a bill to have regulators study the harms of “ultraprocessed foods” and begin phasing them out of schools. Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a similar order in January.
Getting synthetic dyes out of foods “is something that really resonates very broadly with folks across the political spectrum,” Gabriel said. “That’s what politics should be — finding areas where we agree and working together to protect our kids.”
FINALLY FOURTH
California nudged past Japan to (unofficially) become the world’s fourth largest economy, a distinction Newsom was quick to celebrate Wednesday evening.
California’s total gross domestic product in 2024 was $4.1 trillion, while Japan’s was $4.02 trillion, according to data from the International Monetary Fund and the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
The state won’t be included on IMF’s rankings, but the updated numbers mean California remains the largest sub-national economy in the world.
Only the United States, China and Germany had larger GDP totals last year than California.
The Golden State’s outsized economy — driven by tech, entertainment, healthcare and agriculture industries — has always been a point of pride for Newsom, who often refers to California as a “nation-state.”
The milestone is one Newsom has been waiting for. He briefly — and prematurely — began referring to the state as “fourth-largest” after a 2022 Bloomberg columnist wrote that the state was “poised to overtake Germany,” which didn’t quite happen.
It also comes at a precarious time for the global economy due to President Donald Trump’s imposed tariffs and retaliation from countries including China.
“The global economic system that has operated for the last 80 years is being reset,” IMF Chief Economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas warned this week.
Newsom acknowledged as much himself yesterday and teased a bleaker picture for his revised budget proposal, which is due in mid-May.
“The projections have significantly changed since January as it relates to our economic outlook,” he said. “All of a sudden, with all the uncertainty with these tariffs and uncertainty with this new administration, that volatility is putting tremendous strain on our general fund.”
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I know we say affordability all the time up here, but, like, what does it really mean?”
– Assemblymember Juan Alanis, on Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas creating four select committees to address affordability
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